The CoCoNET project aims to increase the number of marine protected areas in the Mediterranean and Black Seas with the participation of 400 scientists from 22 countries, including Turkey and Israel.

The project will last four years and create marine protected areas on the Turkish shores of the Black Sea for the first time, said former dean of Istanbul University’s Sea Products Faculty, Professor Bayram Öztürk, who is in charge of the project in Turkey.

The European Union has dedicated 9 million euros to the project, which is the EU’s second biggest marine research project after the Perseus Project. Nearly 40 science institutions from 22 countries are involved.“Both the Mediterranean and Black Seas are under the threat of great pollution and both of them need protection. We need to create marine protected areas in order to resolve this problem,” Öztürk said.

“We will create a force of scientists who will work for society and for allowing the decision makers to have solid scientific evidence on which they will base their choices in the future.”

The project also aims to display the potential of an off-shore wind farm in the Mediterranean and Black Seas in order to create additional renewable energy sources.

“Today Europe derives 20 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources. According to the Renewable Energy Directive, 34 percent of the EU’s total electricity consumption should come from these sources in 2020. But the European Environmental Agency’s projection shows that in order to reach this target, off-shore wind energy capacity should be increased 17-fold by 2020,” Öztürk added.